User interface for video summaries

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, the User Interface (UI) provides a live stream from the webcam, with markers on the side indicating the stored, detected important events (such as by using a series of bubbles indicating how long ago an event occurred). The indicators are marked to indicate the relative importance, such as with color coding. Upon selection of an indicator by the user, the time-lapse summary is displayed, along with a time of day indication. Alternately, the user can select to have a time-lapse display of all the events in sequence, using a more condensed time lapse, with less important events having less time or being left out.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/853,965, filed Sep. 14, 2015, entitled “User Interface for VideoSummaries, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention generally relates to improvements in methods of automaticvideo editing, and more specifically to methods used in automaticallycreating summaries based on webcam video content, as determined by imageanalysis.

Devices such as video cameras and microphones are often used formonitoring an area or a room. Existing video editing and monitoringsystems typically record events when motion is detected, and providealerts to a user over the Internet. The user can then view just thestored portions of the monitored area when motion was detected. Asummary can, for example, provide a series of still images from eachvideo, to give the user a sense of whether the motion is worth viewing.For example, the user can see if a person is in the scene, or if themotion appears to have been a drape moving, a bird, etc.

Magisto Pub. No. 20150015735 describes capturing images, as opposed toediting, based on various factors, and detecting important objects anddeciding whether to take a video or snapshot based on importance (e.g.,whether someone is smiling). BriefCam has patents that describedetecting an amount of activity, or objects, moving in an image, andoverlaying different object movements on the same image, as a mosaic.See, e.g., Pub. 2009-0219300 (refers to different sampling rates on theimage acquisition side) and Pub. 2010-0092037 (refers to “adaptivefast-forward”). Pub. No. 20150189402 describes creating a video summaryof just detected important events in a video, such as shots in a soccermatch. See also Pub. No. 20050160457, which describes detecting baseballhits visually and from excited announcer sound.

Pub. No. 20100315497 is an example of systems capturing the images basedon face recognition, with a target face profile. ObjectVideo Pub. No.20070002141 describes a video-based human verification system thatprocesses video to verify a human presence, a non-human presence, and/ormotion. See also Wells Fargo Alarm Services U.S. Pat. No. 6,069,655.Pub. No. 2004-0027242 also describes detecting humans, and otherobjects. “Examples include vehicles, animals, plant growth (e.g., asystem that detects when it is time to trim hedges), falling objects(e.g., a system that detects when a recyclable can is dropped into agarbage chute), and microscopic entities (e.g., a system that detectswhen a microbe has permeated a cell wall).”

Pub. No. 20120308077 describes determining a location of an image bycomparing it to images from tagged locations on a social networkingsite. Pub. No. 20110285842 describes determining a location for avehicle navigation system by using landmark recognition, such as a sign,or a bridge, tunnel, tower, pole, building, or other structure

Sony Pub. No. 2008-0018737 describes filtering images based onappearance/disappearance of an object, an object passing a boundaryline, a number of objects exceeding a capacity, an object loiteringlonger than a predetermined time, etc.

ObjectVideo Pub. No. 2008-0100704 describes object recognition for avariety of purposes. It describes detecting certain types of movement(climbing fence, move in wrong direction), monitoring assets (e.g., forremoval from a museum, or, for example: detecting if a single persontakes a suspiciously large number of a given item in a retail store),detecting if a person slips and falls, detecting if a vehicle parks in ano parking area, etc.

Pub. No. 2005-0168574 describes “passback” [e.g., entering throughairport exit] detection. There is automatic learning a normal directionof motion in the video monitored area, which may be learned as afunction of time, and be different for different time periods. “Theanalysis system 3 may then automatically change the passback directionbased on the time of day, the day of the week, and/or relative time(e.g., beginning of a sporting event, and ending of sporting event). Thelearned passback directions and times may be displayed for the user, whomay verify and/or modify them.”

Logitech U.S. Pat. No. 6,995,794 describe image processing split betweena camera and host (color processing and scaling moved to the host).Intel U.S. Pat. No. 6,803,945 describes motion detection processing in awebcam to upload only interesting “interesting” pictures, in particulara threshold amount of motion (threshold number of pixels changing).

Yahoo! Pub. No. 20140355907 is an example of examining image and videocontent to identify features to tag for subsequent searching. Examplesof objects recognized include facial recognition, facial features(smile, frown, etc.), object recognition (e.g., cars, bicycles, group ofindividuals), and scene recognition (beach, mountain). See paragraphs0067-0076. See also Disney Enterprises Pub. No. 20100082585, paragraph0034.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one embodiment of the present invention, a remote video cameraintermittently transmits video clips, or video events, where motion isdetected to a remote server. The remote server provides video summariesto an application on a user device, such as a smartphone.

In one embodiment, the User Interface (UI) provides a live stream fromthe webcam, with markers on the side indicating the stored, detectedimportant events (such as by using a series of bubbles indicating howlong ago an event occurred). The indicators are marked to indicate therelative importance, such as with color coding. Upon selection of anindicator by the user, the time-lapse summary is displayed, along with atime of day indication. Alternately, the user can select to have atime-lapse display of all the events in sequence, using a more condensedtime lapse, with less important events having less time or being leftout.

In another embodiment, the UI, upon the application being launched,provides a video summary of content since the last launch of theapplication. The user can scroll through the video at a hyper-lapsespeed, and then select a portion for a normal time lapse, or normal timeview.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a camera used in an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a cloud-based system used in to anembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating the basic steps performed in thecamera and the server according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the transition to different userinterface display camera views according to an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the transition to different userinterface display menus according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a split user interface display formultiple webcams according to an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Camera Diagram.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a camera used in an embodiment of theinvention. A camera 100 has an image sensor 102 which provides images toa memory 104 under control of microprocessor 106, operating under aprogram in a program memory 107. A microphone 110 is provided to detectsounds, and a speaker 112 is provided to allow remote communication. Atransceiver 108 provides a wireless connection to the Internet, eitherdirectly or through a Local Area Network or router. A battery 114provides power to the camera.

System Diagram.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a cloud-based system used in to anembodiment of the invention. Camera 100 connects wirelessly through theInternet 202 to a remote server 204. Server 204 communicates wirelesslywith a smart phone 206, or other user computing device. Camera 100 canalso connect locally to smart phone 206, or to a local computer 208. Thelocal computer can do some of the image processing, such as advancedmotion detection and object recognition and tagging, and can return theprocessed video and tags to camera 100 for subsequent transmission toserver 204, or local computer 208 could directly transmit to server 204,such as when camera 100 is in a low power, battery mode.

Flowchart of Operation.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating the basic steps performed in thecamera and the server according to an embodiment of the invention. Thesteps above dotted line 300 are performed in the camera 100, while thesteps below the dotted line are performed in the server 204. When thereis no significant motion detected, the camera periodically captures ashort video (e.g., 4 seconds) or a still image, such as every 8 minutes(302). The captured short video is buffered and tagged. Such camera tagsinclude at least the time and date and the lack of motion.

The camera is programmed to detect motion (step 304) from imageanalysis. If the amount of motion, such as the number of pixelschanging, is less than a predetermined amount (306), the video of themotion is discarded (308). If the amount of motion is greater than thethreshold, it is determined whether the motion lasts for more than apredetermined amount of time (310). If the motion time is less than thepredetermined time, it is discarded (308). If the motion lasts for morethan the predetermined time, it is sent to a buffer and tagged withmetadata (314). Such camera metadata tags include the time and date, thelength of the video, and the amount of motion.

In one embodiment, more advanced motion detection and object recognitioncan be done on the camera (315), or in a local computer. The combinedvideo events are then streamed wirelessly to the remote server (312).The images and video can be higher resolution than the bandwidth usedfor streaming. By locally buffering the images and video, it can bestreamed with a delay, and transmitted at a lower frame rate. Thus, forexample, there may be 15 video events of no motion, that are 4 secondseach, and a 5 minute second motion video. These can be buffered, andstreamed over 20 minutes, for example. This provides a time-delayedstream, but with more resolution at lower bandwidth.

The remote server tags the received still images as having no motion.The remote server filters (316) the received video. The filtering isdesigned to eliminate video motion that is not of interest. For example,algorithms process the video to determine the type of motion. If themotion is a curtain moving, a moving shadow of a tree on a window, a fanin the room, etc., it can be filtered out and discarded.

A location detector 318 can be used to process the image to determinethe type of location of the camera. In particular, is it inside oroutside, is it in a dining room or a conference room, etc. Artificialintelligence can be applied to determine the location. For example,instead of a complex object recognition approach, a holistic review ofthe image is done. The image is provided to a neural network or otherlearning application. The application also has accessed to a database ofstored images tagged as particular locations. For example, a widevariety of stored images of kitchens, dining rooms and bedrooms areprovided. Those images are compared to the captured video or image, anda match is done to determine the location. Alternately, a user interfacecan allow a user to tag the type of location. The user interface canprovide the user with the presumed location, which the user can correct,if necessary, or further tag (e.g., daughter's bedroom). One example ofa holistic image review process is set forth in “Modeling the shape ofthe scene: a holistic representation of the spatial envelope,” AudeOliva, Antonio Torralba, International Journal of Computer Vision, Vol.42(3): 145-175, 2001.

In addition to determining a location, a more specific determination ofa “scene” is done. For example, the location may be a bedroom, while thescene is a sleeping baby. In one embodiment, the user is prompted tolabel the scene (e.g., as sleeping baby). Alternately, there can beautomatic detection of the scene using a neural network or similarapplication, with comparisons to images of particular scenes, and alsocomparisons to previously stored images and videos labelled by the user.In addition, various cues are used in one embodiment to determine thetype of scene. For example, for a “sleeping baby,” the video may bematched to a baby in bed scene from examination of the video. This iscombined with other cues, such as the time of day indicating night time,the camera being in night mode, a microphone detecting sounds associatedwith sleeping, etc. Similarly, a birthday party can be detectedholistically using different cues, including the comparison to birthdayparty images, motion indicating many individuals, singing (e.g., thesong “Happy Birthday”), etc. In one embodiment, previous scenes for auser are stored, and used for the comparison. For example, a previousscene may be for “breakfast,” after having the user prompted to confirm.By using similar scenes from the same location for the same user, theaccuracy of identification can be improved over time.

Once the location type is determined, the filtering parameters can beprovided to filtering block 316. In general, the location/scene wouldset some priorities about what is expected and what, in that particularsituation, is more relevant/interesting to the user. What is interestingin one scene might not be interesting in another scene. For example, ifthe location is a living room, there would be suppression of constantmotion at a particular spot which quit likely might be due to a TV or afan. For an outdoor location, much more motion is expected due to windor other weather conditions. Hence the parameters of the videoprocessing (e.g., thresholds) are adapted in order to suppress suchmotions (moving leaves, etc.). Also, regular motion patterns in anoutdoor setting are suppressed in one embodiment (e.g., cars passing byon the street). In contrast, if the setting is a conference room and thescene is a meeting, spotting small motion is relevant to show peoplesitting together and discussing, but not moving much. In anotherexample, where the scene is a sleeping baby, a different filtering isprovided, to capture small movements of the baby, and not filter themout. For example, it is desirable to confirm that the baby is breathingor moving slightly.

Once extraneous motion is eliminated, the program determines if a humanor animal is present (320). The particular human can be identified usingfacial recognition (322). The user can tag various individuals toinitialize this process. Certain animals can be identified the same way,such as by the user providing a photo of the family pet, or tagging thepet in a video captured.

Video that passes through the filtering, and has a human or animalidentified, is then tagged (324) with context data. The tag, ormetadata, includes the identity of the persons or animals, the time ofday, the duration of the video, etc. In one embodiment, there isextraction of other meta-data which is helpful for further learning andpersonalization. Examples include the “colorfulness,” the amount ofmotion, the direction/position where motion appears, the internal stateof the camera (e.g. if it is in night vision mode), the number ofobjects, etc. Most of this data is not accessible by the user. However,this (anonymous) data provides a foundation for gathering user-feedbackand personalization.

In one embodiment, supervised personalization is provided (userdirected, or with user input). This personalization is done usingvarious user input devices, such as sliders and switches or buttons inthe application, as well as user feedback. Unsupervised personalizationis provided in another embodiment, where the application determines howto personalize for a particular user without user input (which issupplemented with actual user input, and/or corrections). Examples ofunsupervised personalization include using statistics of the scene andimplicit user feedback. The use of cues to determine if there is asleeping baby, as discussed above, in an example of unsupervisedpersonalization.

Various types of user feedback can be used to assist or improve theprocess. For example, the user can be prompted to confirm that a“sleeping baby” has been correctly identified, and if not, the user caninput a correct description. That description is then used to update thedata for future characterizations.

A summary of a day or other period of time (e.g., since the lastapplication launch) is then generated (326) using the still images andvideo. The summary is then condensed (328) to fit into a short timeclip, such as 30 seconds. This condensing can reduce the number of stillimages used (such as where there is a long sequence without motion), andcan also reduce, or fast forward the video at different rates, dependingon the determined importance.

User Interface with Day Summary, Bubble Icons.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the transition to different userinterface display camera views according to an embodiment of theinvention. A display 402 provides a live video stream (at a lowerresolution than the time delayed summaries). In one embodiment, when theuser activates the application on the smart phone or other usercomputing device, a signal is relayed through the server to the webcamto start the webcam streaming images. This provides the live view shown.Certain data is overlaid on the display at position 404. In the exampleshown, that data is an indication of the location or other label givento the webcam (living room), an indication that it is a live streamingview (live), and a clock indicating the current time.

When the user taps on the screen (406), the display transitions to aview 408 which includes a series 410 of bubble indicators for storedvideo scenes. View 408 also provides a series of icons 412. Icon 414 isfor sharing the video summary with others, icon 416 is for storing thevideo to a gallery, and icon 418 is for activating a speaker to talk towhomever is in the room with the webcam, like a walkie-talkie push totalk function.

The series of bubble icons 410 includes a larger bubble 420 indicating“live view.” Icon 410 corresponds to what is currently being displayed,and is enlarged to show which view is selected. Icons 422 and 424indicate videos captured for important motion detection events, with thenumbers in the bubbles indicating how long ago the video was captured(e.g., 2 minutes and 37 minutes in the example shown). Alternately, thebubbles can have a timestamp. The color of bubbles 422 and 424 indicatesthe determined importance of the event captured. If the user were toselect, for example, bubble 422, that bubble would be locked in andincrease in size, while moving the middle of the series. A still imagefrom that event would be displayed as the user is scrolling through thebubbles, and the video starts to play once the event is locked in, orthe user activates a play button. Bubble 426 is a “day brief” which willdisplay the condensed summary of the day, from step 328 in FIG. 3. Inone embodiment, images or icons can provide more information about thescene indicated by a bubble, such as an image of a dog or cat toindicate a scene involving the family pet, or a picture or name tag of aperson or persons in the scene.

When the user swipes the timeline (428) on display 408, the series ofbubbles moves as indicated in view 430. As shown, the bubbles have moveddownward, with the 37 minute bubble 424 about to disappear, and a 1 hr.bubble 432 currently enlarged. A semicircle 434 indicates the actualview being displayed is the live view. Alternately, as each bubblebecomes enlarged, upon reaching the middle of the side of the screen, astill image from that video is displayed. Thus, a still image from themotion 1 hour ago would be displayed for button 432. When the userreleases his/her finger, the video for that event 1 hour ago would beginto play. In one embodiment, certain tags could be displayed along withthe still, preview image. For example, the names of persons in theevent, as determined by facial recognition, could be displayed.Additionally, the event could be categorized based on time and objectrecognition (e.g., breakfast), or interaction with a calendar (e.g.,client X meeting).

Display 440 shows the “day brief” bubble 426 after being selected (withthe play icon eliminated). The video is then played, with a pause icon442 provided. A timeline 444 is provided to show progress through theday brief.

GUI Menus.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the transition to different userinterface display menus according to an embodiment of the invention. Adisplay 502 is activated by swiping to the right from the left side ofthe screen. This pulls up 3 menu icons 504, 506 and 508. Tapping icon504 brings up device menu screen 510. Tapping icon 506 brings upnotifications menu 512. Tapping icon 514 brings up account menu 514.

On display 510 are a variety of icons for controlling the device(webcam). Icon 516 is used to turn the webcam on/off. Icon 518 is usedto add or remove webcams. On display 512, icon 520 allows activation ofpushing notifications to the smart phone, such as with a text message orsimply providing a notification for an email. Icon 522 provides foremail notification. Display 514 provides different account options, suchas changing the password, and upgrade to cloud (obtaining cloud storageand other advanced features).

Multiple Cameras, Split View Display

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a split user interface display formultiple webcams according to an embodiment of the invention. Display602 is the main, large display showing the living room webcam. Display604 shows a play room webcam and display 606 shows a study webcam. Inone embodiment, the display of FIG. 6 is the default display providedwhen the application is launched. In one embodiment, a primary displayprovides streaming video, while the other displays provide a stillimage. Alternately, all displays can provide streaming video. Theprimary display can be the first camera connected, or a cameradesignated by the user.

User Interface with Initial Launch of Summary Since Last Activity

In another embodiment, the UI, upon the application being launched,provides a video summary of content since the last launch of theapplication. The user can scroll through the video at a hyper-lapsespeed, and then select a portion for a normal time lapse, or normal timeview. The user can also switch to real-time live streaming, at a lowerresolution than the time-delayed summaries. The summaries arecontinually updated and weighted. For example, a summary may contain 8events with motion after 4 hours. When additional events are detected,they may be weighted higher, and some of the original 8 events may beeliminated to make room for the higher weighted events. Alternately,some of the original, lower-weighted events may be given a smallerportion of the summary, such as 2 seconds instead of 5 seconds. In oneembodiment, the user can access a more detailed summary, or a secondtier summary of events left out, or a longer summary of lower-weightedevents.

Scene Intuition.

Scene intuition is determining the relevance of detected events, inparticular motion. At a basic level, it involves the elimination ofminimal motion, or non-significant motion (curtains moving, a fanmoving, shadows gradually moving with the sun during the day, etc.). Ata higher level, as discussed in more detail in examples below, itinvolves determining the camera location from objects detected (indooror outdoor, kitchen or conference room). An activity can be detectedfrom people or pets detected. A new scene may be tagged if a new personenters or someone leaves, or alternately if an entirely different groupof people is detected. Different detected events can be assigneddifferent event bubbles in the UI example above.

The assignment of video to different summaries, represented by thebubbles, involves grouping “meaningful” things together. For example,different activities have different lengths. Eating breakfast might be arather long one, while entering a room might be short. In oneembodiment, the application captures interesting moments which peoplewould like to remember/save/share (e.g. kids having a pillow fight,etc.). Primary cues for determining when a scene, or activity, beginsand ends include the amount of time after movement stops (indicating theend of a scene), continuous movement for a long period of time(indicating part of the same scene, new motion in a different place(indicating a new scene), and a change in the number of objects, or aperson leaving, or a new person entering.

Search.

By providing tags, or metadata, the videos can be easily searched. Byclassifying videos into different scenes, searching can be based on thetype of scene. The searching can also be based on time, duration ofclips, people in the video, particular objects detected, particularcamera location, etc. In one embodiment, the application generatesdefault search options based on matching detected content with possiblesearch terms. Those possible search terms can be input by the user, orcan be obtained by interaction with other applications and data of theuser. For example, the user may have tagged the names of family members,friends or work associates in a social media or other application, withimages corresponding to the tags. The present application can thencompare those tagged images to faces in the videos to determine if thereis a match, and apply the known name. The default search terms wouldthen include, for example, all the people tagged in the videos for thetime period being searched.

In one embodiment, tags are provided with later searching in mind. Tagsare provided for the typical things a user would likely want to searchfor. One example is taking the names of people and pets. Another exampleis tagging moving objects or people. The type of object that is movingis tagged (car, ball, person, pet, etc.). In one embodiment, while aholistic approach is used rather than object detection for determining ascene, object detection is used for moving objects. Other tags includethe age of people, the mood (happy—smiles, laughing detected, orsad—frowns, furrowed brows detected).

In one embodiment, video search results are ranked based on theweighting of the video summaries, as discussed below and elsewhere inthis application. Where multiple search terms are used, the results withthe highest weighting on the first search term are presented first inone embodiment. In another embodiment, the first term weighting is usedto prioritize the results within groups of videos falling within ahighest weighting range, a second highest weighting range, etc.

In one embodiment, video search results also include events related tothe searched term. For example, a search for “Mitch Birthday” willreturn video events tagged with both “Mitch” and “Birthday.” Inaddition, below those search results, other video events on the samedate, tagged “Mitch,” but not tagged “Birthday,” would also be shown.The “Birthday” tag may be applied to video clips including a birthdaycake, presents, and guests. But other video events the same day may beof interest to the user, showing Mitch doing other things on hisbirthday.

Temporal (Time Delayed) Streaming.

As described above, video and images can be captured at high resolution,buffered, and then streamed over a longer period of time. This ispossible since there is not constant live streaming, but only streamingof periodic no motion clips, and intermittent motion clips. For example,images can be captured at 2-3 megabytes, but then streamed at abandwidth that would handle 500 kilobits live streaming. In oneembodiment, the image data is stored in the camera memory, transcodedand transmitted.

When the video summaries are subsequently viewed by the user, they canbe streamed at high bandwidth, since they are only short summaries.Alternately, they can also be buffered in the user's smart phone, in areverse process, with an additional time delay. Alternately, the videocan be delivered at low resolution, followed by high resolution toprovide more detail where the user slows down the time lapse to view innormal time, or to view individual images.

Split of Processing Between Local Camera and Remote Server

In one embodiment, a webcam provides a coarse filtering and basicprocessing of video, which is transmitted to the “cloud” (a remoteserver over the Internet) for further processing and storing of thetime-lapse video sequences. More processing can be done on the localcamera to avoid cloud processing, while taking advantage of larger cloudstorage capability. A user can access the stored video, and alsoactivate a live stream from the webcam, using an application on asmartphone.

In one embodiment, the local camera detects not only motion, but thedirection of the motion (e.g., left to right, into room or out of room).The origin of the motion can also be determined locally (from the door,window, chair, etc.) In addition, the local camera, or a local computeror other device in communication with the camera, such as over a LAN,can do some processing. For example, shape recognition and object orfacial recognition and comparison to already tagged images in other useapplications (e.g., Facebook) could be done locally. In one embodiment,all of the processing may be done locally, with access provided throughthe cloud (Internet).

In one embodiment, the processing that is done on the camera is theprocessing that requires the higher resolution, denser images. Thisincludes motion detection and some types of filtering (such asdetermining which images to perform motion detection on). Otherfunctions, such as location detection, can be done on lower resolutionimages and video that are send to the cloud.

Low Power, Battery Mode.

In one embodiment, the camera can be plugged into line power, eitherdirectly or through a stand or another device, or it can operate onbattery power. Thus, the camera has a high power (line power) mode, anda low power (battery) mode. In the battery mode, power is conservedthrough a combination of techniques. The number of frames analyzed formotion is reduced, such as every 5^(th) frame instead of a normal every3^(rd) frame. Also, only basic motion detection is performed in thecamera, with more complex motion recognition and object detection doneby a processor in the remote server, or a local computer. The camera isput into a sleep mode when there is no motion, and is woken periodically(e.g., every 8 minutes) to capture a short video or image. Thosevideos/images can be stored locally, and only transmitted when there isalso motion video to transmit, at some longer period of time, or uponrequest, such as upon application launch. In one embodiment, in sleepmode everything is turned off except the parts of the processor neededfor a timer and waking up the processor. The camera is woken from sleepmode periodically, and the image sensor and memory are activated. Thetransmitter and other circuitry not needed to capture and process animage remains asleep. An image or video event is detected. The image orvideo event is compared to a last recorded image, or video event. Ifthere is no significant motion, the camera is returned to the sleepmode.

Tags.

In one embodiment, tags are included for each frame of data.Alternately, tags may be applied to a group of frames, or some tags maybe for each frame, with other tags for a group of frames. As describedabove, minimum tags include a time stamp and indication of motionpresent, along with the amount of motion. Additional tags include:

-   -   Object identification    -   Person identification    -   Camera location    -   Speed of motion    -   Direction of motion    -   Location of motion (e.g., a person entering the room)    -   Type of motion (e.g., walking running, cooking, playing, etc.).        Initialization.

In one embodiment, the product comprises at least one camera with atleast a microphone, and an application that can be downloaded to a smartphone or other device. Upon the initial launch, the application executesa series of steps. It prompts the user to enter the a variety ofinformation, including name, email, etc.

The application will automatically, or after a user prompt, access userdata and other applications to build a profile for use in object, peopleand event detection. For example, a user's social media applications maybe accessed to obtain tagged images identifying the user's family,friends, etc. That data can be uploaded to the cloud, or provided to theprocessor on the camera or another local processing device for use inexamining videos. Also, the user's calendar application may be accessedto determine planned meetings, locations and participants to match witha camera location, where applicable.

Sharing.

In one embodiment, the summaries or live streams can be shared withothers using a variety of methods. For example, applications such asPeriscope or Meercat can be used to share a stream, or set a time whenvideo summaries will be viewable. A video event can also be shared onsocial networking and other sites, or by email, instant message, etc. Inone embodiment, when the sharing icon is selected, the user is presentedwith options regarding what method of sharing to use and also with whomto share. For example, a list of people identified in the video summaryis presented for possible sharing.

Sensor Variations.

The camera can be part of an episode capture device which includes othersensors, such as a microphone. The camera in certain embodiments canmonitor any type of event or interaction or change in an environmentthat can be detected by a sensor and subsequently recorded, includingbut not limited to an image recording device, whether in the form of animage, an audio file, a video file, data file or other data storagemechanism, including, but not limited to: motion, date and time,geographic location, and audio, a motion sensor, including thecombination of a motion sensor with an algorithm capable of identifyingcertain types of motion, proximity sensor, temperature sensor,capacitive sensor, inductive sensor, magnet, microphone, optical sensor,antenna, Near Field Communication, a magnetometer, a GPS receiver andother sensors. The cameras can be digital cameras, digital videocameras, cameras within smartphones, tablet computers, laptops or othermobile devices, webcams, and similar.

Breakfast Example.

The present invention offers the ability to add tags with contextualrelevance to a stream of data representing an event that has occurred.One example is where a camera is set up to observe a kitchen from 6 AMto 6 PM. Events occur within the scene viewed by the camera, such as afamily eating breakfast. The recorded content is analyzed for context.For example, the camera analyses the data based on audio excerpts of thenoise of plates being used, determining that it is placed in a kitchenand there is a meal taking place. Selecting audio data is merely oneexample of how this may be achieved, but other techniques will beapparent to the skilled person for performing this task. Further, theanalysis may be performed within the camera, in another locallyconnected device, or remotely (such as in the cloud). A contextual tagis then allocated to data recorded at the time the noise of plates isdetected. For example, this may occur at 7:15 AM, and the camera furtherrecognises that the people present within the scene are family members,using facial recognition techniques. This creates the opportunity to adda further contextual tag based on the additional information due to theidentification of the family members but also based on the timeinformation, which is utilised to form a timestamp. Timestampinformation may be used in correlation with the additional sensedinformation to distinguish an event from other events with similaractions, e.g. to identify the event as “breakfast” in contrast to“lunch” or “dinner”. Using such contextual tags allows the creation of afully customisable summary. The summary may be based upon predeterminedcriteria or upon user preferences. The scene is therefore monitored overan extended period of time, analysed and contextual tags and timestampsapplied appropriately.

When an event or a portion of the summary is selected by user, thecontextual tags and timestamps enable the generation of a more specificsummary focused on a particular context within the scene, or the contextof a particular event. Taking the breakfast example it is possible toselect a summary comprising a short video sequence, or a summarycomprising a summary of relevant information to the event “breakfast”,such as who was in attendance, how long did breakfast last and so on.The information relevant to the event can also be displayed as textinformation overlaying the presented video sequence. Another possibilityis a summary comprising details of the same event occurring regularlywithin a scene, such as a summary of breakfasts occurring over theprevious seven days. The present invention therefore offers a completelyflexible manner of producing a summary based upon the assignment ofcontextual tags to events occurring within a scene, which may be fullyselectable and determined by a user, or determined dynamically by anepisode capture device, or a combination of both. This is describedfurther in a series of non-limiting examples below.

Conference Room Example.

A video data recording device, such as a camera, able to communicatewith a communication network such as the internet, a local area network(LAN), or cellular network for transmitting data, is placed in aconference room. Initially the camera observes the scene, that is,monitors all events occurring within the room within an episode, such as24 hours, and records the scene using video capture for processing. Theepisode therefore contains periods of activity (people entering andusing a room) and inactivity (the room is empty). During the episode itmay be possible to observe groups of people entering, using and exitingthe room, using the room for various purposes, such as meetings ortelephone conferences. This video capture forms the initial phase of themethod of producing a summary in accordance with an exemplary embodimentof the present invention.)

The data obtained during the video capture is sent to be processed tocreate an event log. This may be done either at the episode capturedevice, in this example, at the camera, or may be done remotely over acommunications network such as the internet (at a remote server, in theCloud) or at a processor in communication with the device, such as overa local area network (LAN). The processing may be done live, that isduring the video capture stage, or subsequently, once the video capturestage is complete, or at an offset, for example, 30 minutes post-videocapture.

Once events are identified an event log can be created. The sensoryinformation may comprise data relating to the output of visual ornon-visual sensors. An event may be detected and/or identified by any ofthese sensors, for example, an optical beam motion detector detects themovement of a person through the door of the conference room. In thissituation, the event is generated by an object, the person, and thepresence of a person is identified in the room. The episode capturedevice may also determine the presence of static items in the room, suchas chairs, which information is fed into the event log when required.

Visual sensory information obtained from the visual sensors is logged.This may include:

Determining whether motion occurs, what type of motion occurs, how muchmotion occurs, the direction and speed of any motion;

Determining whether there are any objects present, the number of objectspresent;

Determining the classification of any objects, including person, pet,inanimate object such as a chair; and

Determining the identification of an object using a recognitiontechnology, for example, facial recognition methods.

Non-visual sensory information obtained from the visual sensors islogged. This may include:

Logging the position of any objects using GPS (global positioningsystem) co-ordinates, geo-fencing or other positioning mechanism;

Logging audio data in any applicable format;

Logging temperature; and

Logging acceleration, direction and height above sea level (altitude).

The sensory information is used to create contextual tags, that whenapplied to the data allow a user to create meaningful summaries. Thecontextual tag indicates the context of the event, and may be specificcontext or more general context. For example, the tag may be “at leastone person present”, or “more than one person present”, or “more thanone person present and that there is interaction between the people”, or“a meeting is in progress”. In the present example the contextual tagindicates that a particular event is a meeting. The timestamp data maybe applied separately to the event, or may be part of the contextualtag, or the contextual tag may in fact be the timestamp data. When agroup of people enter the room, a contextual tag indicating the start ofa meeting is assigned. If a single person enters the room and uses thetelephone, the camera assigns a contextual tag indicating that the roomis being used for a private call. If the camera is connected to acommunications network over which a presentation in the meeting room isaccessed, the camera may assign contextual tags representing the startof a meeting, the end of a meeting, a break occurring within a meeting,or specific parts of a presentation. In this way the contextual tags canbe generated using information directly available via the camera (suchas observing the video scene), but may also use information availablevia other sensors/systems (i.e. information related to use of aprojector).

A summary is created with at least a subset of the events based upon thecontextual tags. In the present example, the summary performs thefunction of a report to a conference room organiser showing the use ofthe facilities. The summary report could take various forms. Forexample, the summary report may be a text based report, a video summary,or a text report with “clickable” thumbnails of significant events. Theconference room organiser may search the summary by time stamp data orcontextual tag. By providing information regarding a subset of events toa user a summary allows the user to monitor the episode and the sceneeffectively. Note that it may also be desirable to include periods ofinactivity in the episode summary. For example, a facilities manager mayfind information about how frequently conference rooms are vacant to beuseful. In another example, a healthcare worker may use the summaryreport to understand the activity (or lack of activity) of a patient.

As part of the summary of events, events observed in a scene may bematched to stored or input data in order to produce a more meaningfulsummary as part of the summary. The episode capture device may befurnished with identity information about frequent occupants of theroom, such that it can identify specific room occupants. Contextual tagsmay be added in order to identify specific room occupants in a summary.The stored or input data identifies an object, which may be a person,and the stored or input data may be used to choose and assign acontextual tag identifying the person. This enables a user to determineif only authorised people such as employees enter the conference room,or whether it is used frequently by non-employees, such as customers orclients. As part of the identification process, if the stored or inputdata matching step identifies a person, it may be desirable to usecharacteristic identification techniques, such as facial recognitiontechniques. This may then be used to determine the subset of eventsincluded in the summary, matching events observed in the scene to thestored or input data to create matched events based upon the contextualtags, such that the subset of events contains the matched events.

Other Examples

The facial recognition example outlined above is a special case of wherean event is triggered by an object. In this situation, the episodecapture device identifies the object within the scene (the person), andidentifies a characteristic of the object (the name of the person), andboth the identity of the object (that it is a person) and thecharacteristic (the name of the person) are included in the summary.This may be the case for other objects, such as identifying a burningcandle in a room—initially the candle is identified and then that it isburning is inferred from its temperature.

Object Monitoring.

In another example a camera may be used to monitor a room for theft. Thecontents, or objects, in the room may be logged. Settings may beconfigured such that events are only triggered if an object is removedfrom the scene or the position of the object changes. Thus people couldenter or exit the scene without triggering an event, as long as theobjects are not removed or moved.

Interaction with Smart Phone.

The episode capture device is preferably configured to connect to a datanetwork, such that it may interact and/or communicate with otherdevices, such as smartphones and tablet computers. Processing to createthe event log and the summary may take place at the episode capturedevice or remotely. Sensors may be provided within the episode capturedevice, or within external devices, or worn on a person or providedwithin a scene may be programmed either to monitor events, monitor ascene or to trigger events. For example, a camera may be configured tointeract with a movement sensor within a smartphone to record that ameeting attendee entered the scene at a walking pace and left the sceneat a running pace. Further, the camera may record that a smartphonebelonging to a particular user enters the region of a local area network(WiFi) that denotes the periphery of a scene, and therefore has enteredthe scene. In the above example, a camera is used as the episode capturedevice, and audio data is used to enhance the video data obtained.However, other sensors may be used to capture events, such as, but notlimited to, a motion sensor, including the combination of a motionsensor with an algorithm capable of identifying certain types of motion,proximity sensor, temperature sensor, capacitive sensor, inductivesensor, magnet, microphone, optical sensor, antenna, Near FieldCommunication and similar devices.

Other Sensors.

An episode capture device is therefore a device that is capable ofrecording an event, and the data obtained may be used appropriately tocreate a summary. Typical episode capture devices include image capturedevices (cameras, in the visible, infrared or ultraviolet spectra) thatmay be digital (including CCD and CMOS devices). Such devices areprovided with visual and non-visual sensors either integral with theepisode capture device (an accelerometer in a mobile phone having acamera) or separate to but in communication and connection with theepisode capture device, so as to be in effect functionally integrated.In the case of a temperature sensor, the sensor may detect that thetemperature of a room increases at 6 AM, and decreases at 8 PM. Itidentifies these points as dawn and dusk, and applied contextual tagsappropriately to each point. Episode capture devices may be usedseparately or together to enhance a summary. Consider the situationwhere a shop monitors stock using magnetic tags, which trigger an alarmwhen passed through an induction loop, and uses a system. It would bepossible to combine a first episode capture device, such as a camera anda second episode capture device, such as an induction sensor system andto assign contextual tags at certain events. An item bearing a tag maybe taken through the induction sensor, thus triggering an alarm. At thispoint a contextual tag may be assigned to the video feed obtained fromthe camera system and a summary generated accordingly.

User Criteria for Events.

The format of the summary may be adapted to include any eventinformation that is of interest to a user. In the case of a summaryindicating the use of a conference room, the summary may include detailsof attendees including their identity, still images, audio recordings,information on types of events, and details of use that flags some kindof warning. Contextual tags added to the data captured by the episodecapture device enable the summary to be as detailed or as concise asdesired. This may be where the device is unable to determine theidentity of a person, or unable to associate an event with an approveduse of the room. The user may select from various pre-programmedoptions, or provide various criteria matching the contextual tags onwhich the summary may be based. This may include type of event,frequency of event, length of video sequence, date and time, geographiclocation, audio content, as examples, although many other criteria arepossible. Storing criteria or inputting criteria to the image capturedevice, either directly or remotely, to form stored or input criteriaand generating the summary using the stored or input criteria allows theuser complete freedom of use. The user may build a bespoke summaryformat or choose from a pre-programmed selection. The summary may begenerated by the episode capture device, a device in which the camera ispositioned or using a remote system.

Summary Formats.

The summary may take various formats, depending on user preference. Oneformat is to show a video feed of all events and periods of inactivityat a changeable speed, such as time-lapse or hyperlapse. Another is tocombine a subset of certain events into a single video feed, forexample, where these events are chosen by a user, as above, or where theevents are chosen using stored or input data to create matched events.It is possible to delete or remove unimportant events based upon usercriteria. For example, a user may specify that only meetings where thereare 4 or more people present must be included in the summary. Theepisode capture device records all of the events during the episode, andthen selects only those corresponding to a meeting with 4 or more peoplepresent, effectively discarding all other events recorded.

Weighting.

One further possibility is prioritising events using a weighting orother prioritisation method, such as a binary selection scheme. Using aweighting method, a weighting is applied to an event, such that thesubset of events in the summary is determined by the weighting. Theweighting itself is determined by a characteristic of an event, forexample, the number of people in a meeting room, the identity of petsrather than persons, the temperature of an object. In the above examplethis is illustrated by considering that the meeting room has a maximumcapacity of 6, and that an organiser is interested in finding outwhether the room is being used to its maximum capacity. One way of doingthis is to assign a weighting to each event where fewer than 6 peopleattend a meeting, for example, and event where one person uses the roomhas a weighting of 5, two people using the room has a weighting of 4,and so on. Initially the user may select a summary based upon eventshaving a weighting of 5 or less.

However, the user may wish to prioritise entries within the summary. Inthis situation the weighting determines the prioritisation of the eventswithin the subset. In the meeting room example, events may be listed inorder of the highest weighting first. In one embodiment, a weightingscale of 0-1, or 1-10 is used for each element weighted. The presence ofsignificant motion is used as a filter before anything is weighted.After that filter is passed, the total of the weights are simply addedtogether for each video event or image. For example, the presence of alot of motion may contribute a weighting of 8 on a scale of 1-10. Thepresence of people tagged as important by the user may add a weight of 7for each such person present. The presence of other people may provide aweight factor of 4 each. The duration of significant motion may add aweight of 1 for each minute, up to a total of 10 minutes. Thus, in oneexample, the weighting is as follows for a 10 minute video event (notethat individual parts of the clip may have different weights):

Two unknown people (4 points each=8 points.

One important person=7 points

Significant motion=8 points

Duration of motion is five minutes=5 points

Total=28 point weighting

In one embodiment, events that are considered for summarization arewithin a specified period of time (e.g., from midnight until now, orduring the last 2 hours, etc.) and contains significant motion (afterthe filtering step). Alternately, a summary, rather than being aspecified period of time, can be defined by a number of events, apercentage of events recorded, all events above a certain score, etc.

In one embodiment, event scoring is based on the following cues:

1. Event scoring.

a. gap before event: event gets a higher score if there was nothinghappening before that event for a long period.

b. event duration: lower score for very short events.

c. motion location and size: higher score for motion that is in thecenter and has a larger extent.

d. motion anomaly: a model of past motion detected is created. A newmotion observation gets a higher score, if it is abnormal given theprevious content. This can also be seen as a notion of ‘surprise.’

e. number of objects: higher score if more objects are moving in theevent.

f. detections: some detected concepts lead to higher scores, such as adetected person, a detected face, regions of skin color, etc.

g. image quality: contrast, sharpness of the image or distribution ofcolors.

In one embodiment, scores are combined using a weighted average. Othermethods for combinations are also possible. In an alternate embodiment,scores and weights are adapted or added/omitted based on the user'sgeneral preferences or user specifications for one summary.

In one embodiment, the weights don't include the time of day, when theevent appears. This is handled in the second step:

2. select events, using a greedy approach. pseudocode:

while total SummaryDuration<targetDuration do:

A. select the highest weighted event and add it to the summary

B. reweight all the other events, according to their temporal distancewith respect to the selected event.

This will ensure not to choose two events which happen one after theother, but rather select events that are diverse across the full timerange. In one embodiment, some heuristics are added to ensure someregular distribution over time. The reweight factor depends on the totalsummary time range: e.g., reweighting is different for a 1 hour periodthan for a 24 hour period.

In one embodiment, for long periods of no activity (for example, in aliving room where a person is at work all day, and the only motion ispresent in the morning and the evening), ‘filler’ is added. That is, theplayback speeds are adjusted, as already discussed above. A time lapsewith 1 frame every 6 min is used for no activity periods, whereas a‘hyper lapse’ style video is played for motion events (e.g., speeding upnormal speed by a factor of 8). Of course, other particular time periodsand speeds can be used.

Cloud Storage.

The episode capture device may make use of cloud data storage to createor enhance the episode capture device or within a cloud data storagefacility. Data may then be downloaded from the cloud data storage as andwhen desired in creating a summary, such that at least one step in themethod outlined above occurs using this data. This enables even deviceswith small memory capacity to be configured to create a summary, sinceat least one step outlined in the method above may take place remotefrom the episode capture device. The ability to store and access largeamounts of data relating to events and a scene also enables the creationof enhanced summaries.

Enhanced Summaries.

A detailed summary may be considered as comprising many layers ofinformation, summarising video data, audio data, geographic data and soon. This layered approach allows a user to zoom into certain areas ofinterest. For example, in the conference room scenario above, aconference organiser receives a summary of a day's conference. Thisincludes details of all participants, copies of presentations andhandouts, all movement and geographical information as well as video andaudio data of the events during the conference or of various conferenceswhich took place in the respective conference room monitored by theevent capture device. The organiser is told that a certain event, suchas a presentation, happened at a particular time. The organiser can zoominto the summary at various times, and chooses to zoom into the event.The detail within the summary allows the organiser to review and selecta particular event, and to choose to have video data of the eventstreamed to a device to view. This may be a device that the organiserchooses to view the summary on or another device. For example, theorganiser may choose to view the summary on a smartphone. However, inorder to view video data the organiser prefers to use a tablet computer.Once the zoom into the summary is chosen using the smartphone, theorganiser is able to stream video content of the event to the tabletcomputer.

The layering approach also facilitates an automatic edit of the summarydepending on the amount of data a user can receive. For example, if auser is accessing the summary using a smartphone connected to a cellulardata network, a short version of the summary containing only highlightswith hyperlinks to further content is transmitted, since, for example,if the cellular data network is a 3G network, data transfer isrelatively slow and the user may prefer not to receive and download ahigh volume of data. Furthermore, summary information in text form, forexample, the. occurrence of a certain event or appearance of a certainperson, may be transmitted to a mobile device of a user, in the form ofa short message (such as SMS, MMS or text) and/or making use ofpush-functionality for notification. The type of information provided tothe user in this manner may be determined by a user or sent according topre-determined criteria. However if a user is accessing the summary viaa local area network (Wi-Fi) or other data connection, a more detailedsummary may be transmitted. The episode capture device may bepre-programmed with information specific to the room in which it islocated. Alternatively a user may notify the camera of its location onceit has been placed within a room.

Alternate Embodiments

The present invention is not limited to the exemplary embodimentdescribed above. It is possible to utilise the invention in a widevariety of applications, for example, home security, surveillance,monitoring (such as a baby monitor or pet monitor), room or facilityusage (such as designated equipment or apparatus), indeed any situationwhere it is required to be able to monitor a scene remotely to determinethe occurrence of events. Suitable episode capture devices includedigital cameras, digital video cameras, cameras within smartphones,tablet computers, laptops or other mobile devices, webcams, and similar.Such cameras should be adapted to communicate data via a network to aclient computer, software program, an app on a mobile device or, ingeneral, to a suitable storage device, wherein such storage devices mayinclude additional processing capacities for subsequent imageprocessing. Cameras may be dedicated devices or multipurpose, that is,with no fixed designation with regard to monitoring a scene for events

In general, the episode capture device comprises a processor able toaccess a software module configured to perform the method outlined aboveIn an exemplary embodiment the software module is based on thedetermination of certain criteria, either pre-defined or selectable by auser, for the identification of certain events. Subsequently, forexample, upon selection by the user, a summary comprising a summary iscreated based on selected criteria, such as a certain event, optionallyin combination with another constraint, for example, the maximum lengthof the summarising video sequence or a predetermined data volume. Thisresults in a parameter-dependent automated video analysis method, inwhich significantly less video data has to be evaluated to determine ifan event has occurred within a scene.

These and other embodiments not departing from the spirit and scope ofthe present invention will be apparent from the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for displaying video summaries to a usercomprising: upon launch of an application on a computing device having adisplay, providing one of the group of: a live video stream from aremote camera, a video event from the remote camera, a summary of videoevents from the remote camera, and an image from the remote camera;providing by a processor in the computing device multiple indicators onthe display indicating stored, detected important video events; upondetection by the processor of selection on the display of an indicatorby the user, providing a time-lapse summary of the selected event;providing a time of day indication on the display along with theselected event: wherein one of the indicators is for a time-lapsedisplay of all the events in sequence in a designated timer period,using a more condensed time lapse than the time lapse for individualvideo events.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein the indicators are aseries of bubbles, with each bubble including an indication of when anevent occurred.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the indicators furtherindicate the relative importance of the events with color coding.
 4. Themethod of claim 1 wherein one of the indicators is for a time-lapsedisplay of all the events in sequence in a designated timer period,using a more condensed time lapse than the time lapse for individualvideo events; wherein less important events have less time; and applyinga weighting to the events such that events with a higher weight areprovided one of more time and a slower time lapse.
 5. The method ofclaim 1 wherein the images provided upon launch include multiple imagesfrom multiple remote cameras.
 6. The method of claim 1 furthercomprising; scrolling through the indicators in response to a user swipeaction on a display; enlarging a current indicator; and provide adisplay of at least one image from the video event corresponding to thecurrent indicator.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein one of theindicators is provided for a summary of video events, the summaryconsisting of video events for a day.
 8. The method of claim 1 whereinone of the indicators is provided for a summary of video events, thesummary consisting of video events since a last launch of an applicationfor implementing the method of claim
 1. 9. The method of claim 1 whereina live video stream from a remote camera is provided upon launch, withthe live video stream having a lower resolution than the time-lapsesummary of the selected event.
 10. A method for displaying videosummaries to a user comprising: upon launch of an application on acomputing device having a display, providing one of the group of: a livevideo stream from a remote camera, a video event from the remote camera,a summary of video events from the remote camera, and an image from theremote camera; playing a summary of video events; wherein the summary ofvideo events comprises a series of video events from a remote cameraover a designated period of time; wherein the summary video is atime-lapse summary of intermittent video events where motion wasdetected; wherein different events are allocated different amounts oftime based on characteristics of each event; and revising the playbackspeed of portions of the summary selected by the user.
 11. A computingdevice having a display for displaying video summaries to a usercomprising: a processor configured, upon launch of an application on thecomputing device, to provide one of the group of: a live video streamfrom a remote camera, a video event from the remote camera, a summary ofvideo events from the remote camera, and an image from the remotecamera; the processor being further configured to provide multipleindicators on the display indicating stored, detected important videoevents; the processor being configured, upon detection of selection onthe display of an indicator by the user, to provide a time-lapse summaryof the selected event; wherein one of the indicators is for a time-lapsedisplay of all the events in sequence in a designated timer period,using a more condensed time lapse than the time lapse for individualvideo events; and the processor being configured to provide a time ofday indication on the display along with the selected event.
 12. Thedevice of claim 11 wherein the indicators are a series of bubbles, witheach bubble including an indication of how long ago an event occurred.13. The device of claim 11 wherein the indicators further indicate therelative importance of the events with color coding.
 14. The device ofclaim 11 wherein one of the indicators is for a time-lapse display ofall the events in sequence in a designated timer period, using a morecondensed time lapse than the time lapse for individual video events;wherein less important events have less time; and the processor isconfigured to apply a weighting to the events such that events with ahigher weight are provided one of more time and a slower time lapse. 15.The device of claim 11 wherein the images provided upon launch includemultiple images from multiple remote cameras.
 16. The device of claim 11further comprising; the processor being configured to scroll through theindicators in response to a user swipe action on a display; enlarging acurrent indicator; and provide a display of at least one image from thevideo event corresponding to the current indicator.
 17. The device ofclaim 11 wherein on of the indicators is provided for a summary of videoevents, the summary consisting of video events for a day.
 18. The deviceof claim 11 wherein on of the indicators is provided for a summary ofvideo events, the summary consisting of video events since a last launchof an application.
 19. The device of claim 11 wherein the processor isconfigured to provide a live video stream from a remote camera uponlaunch, with the live video stream having a lower resolution than thetime-lapse summary of the selected event.
 20. The device of claim 11wherein the processor is configured to display video summaries to a userby playing a summary of video events; wherein the summary of videoevents comprises a series of video events from a remote camera over adesignated period of time; wherein the summary video is a time-lapsesummary of intermittent video events where motion was detected; and theprocessor being configured to revise the playback speed of portions ofthe summary selected by the user.